Lawo Places Multiple IP Solutions at the Center of Game Creek Video’s New Truck Fleet

Game Creek Video’s brand-new fleet of IP OB trucks not only boasts of impressive working floor dimensions but are also packed with Lawo IP technology for video and audio routing, multiviewers and overall orchestration and control. “Bravo” and “Columbia”, both 53′ Expandos with a HD Production Unit of 64′ by 24′ Recommended Working Area provide 26 fully-fledged workplaces in a spacious environment. Both have been already in use this Summer and will now ensure NFL coverage. Next truck in production called “Gridiron” is designed the same way but will feature also an additional B unit. For early next year two more trucks are scheduled, featuring the same design.

“We are honored to announce our growing partnership with Game Creek Video. Like Game Creek, Lawo is a family-owned and operated organization, and our two companies share similar core values of hard work and integrity, traits we work hard to put at the forefront of our everyday business. We look forward to delivering world class systems for Game Creek to meet their growing technology needs now and into the future,” says Jeff Smith, Senior Vice President of Sales Americas, Lawo.

For signal routing infrastructure Game Creek has decided on a Lawo/Arista ST2110 network based on the Lawo V__matrix IP routing and processing platform. Loaded with function-specific apps, the software-defined V__matrix C100 processing blades handle all IP/SDI conversion, video/audio processing, and multiviewers. Looking into the trucks, each features a total of 83x C100 processing blades are hosted in eleven frames, providing the truck’s IP video core infrastructure. The blades are connected through redundant 40GbE (or 4x10GbE) Ethernet interfaces to the network and form a distributed IP routing and processing matrix that provides frame-accurate, clean switching just like a legacy baseband matrix. For integrating legacy equipment, the V__matrix installation furnishes a 432×528 SDI gateway solution.

The truck’s video switcher is a ST2110 capable GV K-Frame-X, the up to 20 Sony HDC 4300 cameras are built out for parallel SDI and ST2110 workflows, providing maximum flexibility when interfacing to venue infrastructure during productions. Also, the eight 16 channel EVS replay systems and the Spotbox are built for parallel SDI and ST2110 operation. When it comes to signal conversion, V__matrix C100 blades loaded with the vm_udx app will provide up to 64 Up/Down/Cross format conversion paths between SDR/HDR SD, HD and 4K formats plus audio embedding/de-embedding, frame-sync, proc amp and RGB color correction functionality in every processing path.

The 288×96 IP multiviewer is also processed via the V__matrix infrastructure using the vm_dmv distributed multiviewer app.

“We’re very excited by the idea of the distributed multiviewer from Lawo. It’s an unusual concept at first glance, but by using the IP network as an unlimited “backplane”, you can immediately imagine growing the multiviewer system in ways that have not been possible or practical previously. Along with theWALL configuration software, we can now offer our clients and engineers monitoring flexibility that has not been possible previously,” says Jason Taubman, SVP Technology, Game Creek Video.

For audio shuffling and connecting the Artemis console, twelve units of the Lawo Power Core, Lawo’s versatile AoIP DSP mixing engine and I/O node, are used for MADI, AES and analog audio gateways to AES67. The complete truck and its IP infrastructure are controlled and orchestrated by the Lawo VSM IP broadcast control system. Abstracting the complexity of the IP installation from the users, VSM significantly reduces set-up times at changing production requirements and enhances the workflows by giving ease of control for operational personnel – a paramount factor to Game Creek’s IP truck’s system design. For the approx. 60 user interfaces Game Creek decided on a combination of touchscreen-optimized vsmPANEL software panels and traditional hardware button panels.

“Maintaining a familiar router control workflow, or stream management in the IP world, for both our engineers and our clients is critically important when moving to IP. VSM provides us with a complete set of workflow tools, allowing us to leverage all of the flexibility that IP provides, while presenting a familiar, manageable, and powerful control interface to our users,” explains Taubman.

For ensuring in-depth network monitoring, network stability and security Game Creek added Lawo’s SMART System Monitoring and Realtime Telemetry solution. Designed to bridge the gap between IT and video engineering, SMART straddles both sides of the operation to provide a comprehensive view of what the network is doing, if PTP is set correctly and how the media streams flowing across the network are behaving. The SMART OB package also integrates smartSCOPE’s deep packet inspection and network analyzing tools, providing the right monitoring and visualization technologies in place to proactively identify impairments and service disruption which is imperative to the success of the operation.